Mighty Body

Do you remember KlTT – Knight Industries Two Thousand, the talking car driven by Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) star of the sitcom “Knight Rider” very popular among teenagers in the 1980s? It was pretty awesome, it had even a personality!

What if you had a machine even cooler than KITT? One that could repair itself? Let’s say you scratched the side of it getting out of the garage, and made a deep scratch in the shiny body. Then, without you having to worry about anything, seven days later your car is like new, it fixed itself little by little every day. Pretty cool right? Still imagine if once a week your car did a self-cleaning. How come? You stop by the gas station to fill up, open the door and it throws all the garbage out and self-vacuums? Exactly! And what if it had an automatic anti-burglary system? Some stranger breaks in and a deadly goo is released and kills the criminal? There you go! I bet everyone would love a machine like that! Well, you have one!

That’s exactly how your body works! It is magical! I cut myself cooking last week, my finger is already as before. My daughter plays soccer on turf fields and she gets turf burns almost every game. Seven days later, goodbye hurt! We don’t realize the magic, the miracle, the wonder of the machine we have! And yes, your mighty body has an automatic cleaning mechanism! It continuously cleans itself and accumulates batches of waste to be discarded from time to time. Plus, it has an amazing defense mechanism against foreign bodies, viruses, malformed cells, and pathogenic bacteria! Believe me, all this power is in you! Of course, for this machine to work well we need to fuel it right, do periodic maintenance, and take care of it with lots of love.

The human body is the most perfect machine there is! With its multitude of cells, organs, and systems – all functioning in perfect harmony. This amazing machine does miraculous things every second! It’s able to turn oxygen and nutrients into energy, it’s able to regenerate, detoxify, defend against external invaders, and heal! Yes, your body is so perfect that it has a built-in repair system!

If your body is not working so perfectly what could be wrong? If your immune system was designed to get rid of all the bugs, why have you been experiencing signs and symptoms of a specific diagnosis? Well, this is what the upstream approach of Functional Medicine is all about, uncovering the root cause of symptoms and diseases by seeing the human body as a whole. Its holistic approach creates a healing environment capable to restore the immune system and other systems that affect immunity. This is what needs to be done for your machine to operate at maximum efficiency, according to design.

I met several wonderful functional doctors throughout my health coaching training program, each one with a healing journey more exciting and inspiring than the other. All of them have been working to spread the news that it is possible to reverse clinical conditions like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases (multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid disorders, etc.) through lifestyle change. My son was diagnosed with hypothyroidism at the age of 8 – I remember asking the doctor what could have caused the condition all of a sudden. Unfortunately, at that time she didn’t have an answer for me. Now I know my son was under great stress in third grade with the high load of homework. The stress caused an imbalance in his metabolism and affected his thyroid function. Yes, children get stressed out too! In fact, stress is a natural physiological mechanism in humans, it is necessary and needs to be managed. Like emotions.

I’ve never liked taking medications and the idea of not knowing the cause of my headaches has always bothered me, that’s why functional medicine is the approach that makes the most sense for me. According to Dr. Susan Blum, IIN’s visiting faculty member, there are only four systems that when out of balance can cause all kinds of diseases: digestive, endocrine (hormonal), microbiome, and detoxification (liver). If these four systems are kept in balance, and functioning perfectly, ALL kinds of diseases can be avoided! ALL OF THEM!! The catch is to learn how to nurture and manage these systems the right way. Remember that your body has all the necessary repair mechanisms in place so, believe me – medications should be used only to reverse critical imbalances, just to help you get off rock bottom.

Dr. Andrew Weil, a pioneer of Integrative Medicine, has developed breathing techniques for depression and anxiety treatment. Dr. Josh Axe helped his mother’s cancer remission through functional medicine holistic approach allied to nutrition. Dr. Brooke Goldner healed herself from lupus. Dr. Terry Wahls healed herself of multiple sclerosis. Dr. Zack Bush, Dr. David Katz, Dr. Pamela Yee, Dr. Elen Vora, Dr. Daphne Miller, Dr. Drew Ramsey, Dr. Mark Heyman, and so many other amazing functional doctors advocate for the same cause! It is possible to eliminate 80% of all cases of heart disease, 90% of diabetes, 60% of all types of cancer, all autoimmune diseases, and even mental disorders with changes in food and lifestyle. If knowledge is the power, in a joint effort, we can change the epidemiological picture of today’s world. We should and must learn how to fuel and operate our mighty bodies! All the doctors I mentioned here have published several books and bestsellers:

In her book Goodbye Autoimmune Disease, Dr. Brooke Goldner teaches 6 steps to reverse any autoimmune disease with supermarket food. She presents 25 patient case studies where she shows pictures of before and after them following her 6 weeks protocol. Patients have cured themselves of lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto, CREST syndrome, fatty liver, type 1 diabetes, hypothyroidism, Sjogren’s disease, Lyme disease, Celiac disease, and psoriatic arthritis without taking any kind of medication!

In his book Ancient Remedies, Dr. Josh Axe talks about the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) approach and how nature has given us all the medicines needed to treat and avoid more than 70 different ailments. He tells how he helped his mother’s cancer remission in 9 months using the functional medicine holistic approach. His treatments include a list of foods that harm, foods that heal, medicinal herbs, and essential oils on a case-by-case basis.

If you have been diagnosed with any of the diseases mentioned here or if you feel tired all the time, with brain fog, or in pain do not think you’re getting old and this is all normal. Believe that your body has the ability to heal itself! Learn to use food as medicine! Do your research, find out, and make the necessary changes to restore your quality of life! Remember that you have a mighty body and it knows what to do! Take good care of it!

Anna.